The university announced Wednesday that Dr. Peter O. Kohler would become its vice chancellor for the northwest Arkansas region.

He will plan a satellite campus in Fayetteville that will include colleges of medicine, pharmacy and health-related professions, the UAMS said.

Kohler, 68, retired last year after serving 18 years as president of the OHSU, which also is working toward creating a satellite campus.

"I believe strongly in the need to expand the pipeline for producing more doctors, pharmacists and health care professionals," Kohler said. "Creating a satellite campus as a way to produce more health care professionals is an option being used across the country, including in Oregon," he said.

Kohler was an interim dean for the UAMS College of Medicine in the 1980s. He'll earn $265,225 a year in his new position. Last year, UAMS chancellor I. Dodd Wilson estimated the satellite campus would allow the university to train upward of 295 more students a year.
-The Associated Press